For the record: The numbers shown at 6:16 is the growth you get WITHOUT a magnet stir plate, in fact, without any shaking or aeration at all. If you use a stir plate like in the video, you can expect 2-3 times more growth. (I've just read the book where the numbers are from). Most online resources will show this correctly. Thx, White Labs.
Yes that’s exactly the comment you was going to make. It seems almost as if whitelabs is deliberately obscuring the correct yeast growth model. They have to know.
Amazing video, but it left a few questions unanswered. I feel that this could have been tailored a bit better to the average homebrewer. I still have two questions and I am hoping that someone can answer them. 1. How large should I should make a starter for a 5 gallon batch? 2. Do I need to have it on the stir plate / shake it often for the whole two days, or just in the beginning?
I made a 2 litre starter based on what she explained with a stir plate and it is looking good not sure either how much of that 2L I should pitch. I am thinking about 1 L will give me over a billion for 5G.
Ryan Moore, you'd want to aerate the starter for the first 18-24 hours(and not after that). The new yeast cells will then need about 8-12 hours "rest" for building up their glycogen reserves. But this last step is optional, mostly dependant on the starter-size. If you make a starter less than 5% of the final batch, you can also just pitch it directly after 24 hours. If it's bigger than 5%, let it cool and settle out(12-24 hours), than decant, and pitch. For starter sizes and calculations, try this link: www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/.
I make 2 litre starter as well, but after a while the yeast will settle, so I'm tossing away the liquid on top and only keep the yeast slurry from the bottom of the flask.
I find for a 5-7 gal batch 200g of DME 1600 ml. of H2O brought to a boil and then cooled to 85F will give me close to 2000ml, on the stir plate for 24 hrs. be sure to aerate the beer before you add the yeast this gives it a really good start lots of food for the yeast to feed off. Ian Smiley sells a really good yeast Prestige is the name
To anyone crying about the fact that she touched the stir bar, consider that she just poured tens of billions of yeast cells into the flask which will quickly and aggressively start growing to even more billions. Any minute amount of contamination that a pair of clean washed hands transferred to that stir bar has 0 chance of living. Were making a yeast starter here, not performing open heart surgery.
Or, without seeing them dip their hands first in sanitizer, it’s a really terrible example to set. Sure, it might not cause an infection, but why take the chance? There is pediococcus, staphylococcus, all sorts of stuff on our skin.
@@seanphilipp4885 - Gotta love that for hundreds.. no, thousands of years, humans have been making beer in open-air unsanitized wooden vats and buckets when we didn't even know about germ theory. And y'all here acting like touching a stir bar with clean hands is the end of the world. Keep being ridiculous! 👌🏻
sorry to be so offtopic but does anyone know a tool to log back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any assistance you can give me.
@August Chad thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
Still a great vid! Using the hdd drive magnet on a plastic tupperware stirplate method for the 2nd time....(bye bye hdd! and corsair fan!)...saved me about 200 bucks or more! Mostly kudos for the 1:10 DME ratio and easy sanitizing in oven tips...still begs the question: (what is most sanitary, after making starter wort in pot....and how to transfer!...transfer the wort while just off the boil to the oven-sanitized borosilicate or cool with the lid on in cold water in the sink, THEN transfer with everything sprayed the SH!t out of with sanitizer? And how sanitary are latex gloves anyway?)...hehe hope that gets your pot boiling...
The only real risk would be that there is little to no viable yeast. With that said, Belgian strains tend to often surprise us so give it a shot and let us know how it turns out!
@@WhiteLabsInc Thanks, will do. Its chimay blue that I will be using. I have heard that it's a bottling yeast, so I might add it towards the end of the ferment, or in the secondary vessel.
@@WhiteLabsInc I made the starter and it seems to have grown quite a lot. The only issue I can see is that it's slightly off white in colour. Whether that is a problem, I am unsure.
I can't wait for the White Labs television commercial with the jingle, "♫ The Original, Pitchable Yeast!♫". This is a great video, but you might want be cognizant of the redundant information. Thanks!
It looks like the stir bar was put through an autoclave which is why she pulls it out of the foil. Gloves would be ideal but she could have sprayed her hands with 70%+ alcohol or other sanitizer prior to filming.
@@WhiteLabsInc thanks the the reply. It's just an amusing mistake on an otherwise very well done video. I hope you guys keep up the public information for the brewers. Your a great resource.
Neva: I noticed that you introducded a stirbar to the flask by hand. Isn't this a good way to introduce unwanted bacteria to the wort? I don't touch the stirbar after sanitizing in boiling water. My method is 1. put a small amount of water into the flask along with the stir bar 2. cover the mouth of the flask with foil 3. place the flask over a low flame and boil the water with stirbar for 15 min. The stirbar provides nucliation points much like boiling chips. 4. let cool 5. decant the water 6. add previously boiled and cooled (canned) wort to the flask. (I can some wort from each brewing session for yeast cultivation) 7. add yeast, cover with foil 8. aerate or oxygenate 9. begin stirplate action
What I don't see in this video is...what is happening with the yeast before adding it? Is it sitting out at room temp for a couple hours? for a day? for minutes?
I took the 2 day class from White Labs in Boulder in '16. Folks were nice, process was basic 'biology/chemistry' level stuff, and honestly I got very bored very quickly. However, lab work is generally pretty boring, so I video taped a bunch of stuff, took photos, and toured Sam's operation which is adjacent to WL in the building shared with Upslope. Visit with Sam, or whomever is there now. As for the quality of this video, its a general tutorial, and accurate and good. However, the focus on being sanitized, concerned about the priority for it in building cell count and viability, the HUGE lack of focus in the video about sanitization is a bit of a concern. Total fail on it, but again the video is about the process, not the details.
While I appreciate the comprehensiveness of this video, I don't think you're bringing it down enough to the neophyte level for most people to understand. Just tell them to make a wort with 1.5L of water and a cup of light DME, pitch, then cool, isn't it really that simple when it comes down to it?
It's not right, she says 1 to 10 ratio, 200 grams and enough water to make 2 liters. 1 to 10 is 200 grams added to 2 liters, not to make up a total of two liters.
If the goal is sanitation, why unwrap the stir bar from the foil pouch and handle it with bare hands before going into the flask? This is right about 4:17 in the video.
too much work for me - I just pitched it to 5 gallons of 1.080 (10.9% potential abv) Russian Imperial Stout. Also, it it OK if I took it out of the freezer 24 hours before pitching? It fizzed and spilled over a little when I opened it.
The back ground noise (Music??) is awful, get rid of it. I have hearing loss and that noise makes it impossible to make sense of the presentation. Sad really, such a good video otherwise.
Dave she said the most important thing was to be sanitary she was making a video to help us, I am sure she did not actually pitch that yeast nor did I see a final product. A has-mat suit would not have been practical for this production...cheers
I think that if so many people have to ask so many questions about this topic after having viewed this video there is no way I can consider this a "great video." 'Member the old "Keep It Simple Stupid" admonition? Well, it applies here. KISS.
It's always been simple for me. Only one bad starter in 12 years. That was from the manufacturer who sent me a bad yeast. Hundreds of good starters and one bad yeast. Because something is simple does not mean that it's easy.
First of all: Thanks for this video 2º - Please american people start to use the metric system like the rest of the word! Will be very nice with us! 3º - Nice graphic in the end of video! Where I can find to download that?
Maybe she had sanitized her hands with alcohol or something? Anyway, this should have been commented. I don't doubt her knowlegde about microbiology, so this is probably just a slip-up.
Considering the number of times you mentioned “sanitation”, perhaps you should follow that advice yourself? I cringed when you picked up that stirbar with your hands, and then you went ahead and put it in the beaker! 😬 and the way you used imperial measurements all the time, makes me really wonder how serious a “lab” you really are. Otherwise, good video.
Dry yeast normally just needs to be re-hydrated properly. If you are trying to inoculate a large volume of wort (more than 30 liters) you should consider using more than one package of dry yeast. Alternatively you could make a starter to grow the yeast population.
For the record: The numbers shown at 6:16 is the growth you get WITHOUT a magnet stir plate, in fact, without any shaking or aeration at all. If you use a stir plate like in the video, you can expect 2-3 times more growth. (I've just read the book where the numbers are from). Most online resources will show this correctly. Thx, White Labs.
what's the name of said book there buddy?
Yes that’s exactly the comment you was going to make. It seems almost as if whitelabs is deliberately obscuring the correct yeast growth model. They have to know.
I have watched this video many times, have referred many friends to this presentation and still think it is fabulous :--)
What is the reason you fill up the Eldenmeyers up to approx. 1/3 of its capacity and not more ?
Amazing video, but it left a few questions unanswered. I feel that this could have been tailored a bit better to the average homebrewer. I still have two questions and I am hoping that someone can answer them.
1. How large should I should make a starter for a 5 gallon batch?
2. Do I need to have it on the stir plate / shake it often for the whole two days, or just in the beginning?
I made a 2 litre starter based on what she explained with a stir plate and it is looking good not sure either how much of that 2L I should pitch. I am thinking about 1 L will give me over a billion for 5G.
Ryan Moore, you'd want to aerate the starter for the first 18-24 hours(and not after that). The new yeast cells will then need about 8-12 hours "rest" for building up their glycogen reserves. But this last step is optional, mostly dependant on the starter-size. If you make a starter less than 5% of the final batch, you can also just pitch it directly after 24 hours. If it's bigger than 5%, let it cool and settle out(12-24 hours), than decant, and pitch.
For starter sizes and calculations, try this link: www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/.
I make 2 litre starter as well, but after a while the yeast will settle, so I'm tossing away the liquid on top and only keep the yeast slurry from the bottom of the flask.
I find for a 5-7 gal batch 200g of DME 1600 ml. of H2O brought to a boil and then cooled to 85F will give me close to 2000ml, on the stir plate for 24 hrs. be sure to aerate the beer before you add the yeast this gives it a really good start lots of food for the yeast to feed off. Ian Smiley sells a really good yeast Prestige is the name
To anyone crying about the fact that she touched the stir bar, consider that she just poured tens of billions of yeast cells into the flask which will quickly and aggressively start growing to even more billions. Any minute amount of contamination that a pair of clean washed hands transferred to that stir bar has 0 chance of living.
Were making a yeast starter here, not performing open heart surgery.
Maybe she sprays her hands with sanitizer like I do?
Or, without seeing them dip their hands first in sanitizer, it’s a really terrible example to set. Sure, it might not cause an infection, but why take the chance? There is pediococcus, staphylococcus, all sorts of stuff on our skin.
And ignore the sterilization of the flask? You're nuts. That was a complete mistake.
@@seanphilipp4885 - Gotta love that for hundreds.. no, thousands of years, humans have been making beer in open-air unsanitized wooden vats and buckets when we didn't even know about germ theory.
And y'all here acting like touching a stir bar with clean hands is the end of the world. Keep being ridiculous! 👌🏻
@@TheMrVengeance Guess you don't know what the word sterilization means then.
Terrific little educational tutorial. Thank you. Please add more on yeast propagation and separation.
sorry to be so offtopic but does anyone know a tool to log back into an Instagram account..?
I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any assistance you can give me.
@Waylon Josiah instablaster :)
@August Chad thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and im waiting for the hacking stuff atm.
Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
@August Chad It did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
Thanks so much, you saved my ass!
@Waylon Josiah glad I could help =)
Thanks, nice explanation. Kove that you used metric measurement. Well done from South Africa.
Pardon my ignorance . . . do you still have to boil wort with this process? Is this a wort substitution or an additive? Thanks : )
Still a great vid! Using the hdd drive magnet on a plastic tupperware stirplate method for the 2nd time....(bye bye hdd! and corsair fan!)...saved me about 200 bucks or more! Mostly kudos for the 1:10 DME ratio and easy sanitizing in oven tips...still begs the question: (what is most sanitary, after making starter wort in pot....and how to transfer!...transfer the wort while just off the boil to the oven-sanitized borosilicate or cool with the lid on in cold water in the sink, THEN transfer with everything sprayed the SH!t out of with sanitizer? And how sanitary are latex gloves anyway?)...hehe hope that gets your pot boiling...
I'm really happy this was made. I been doing beer reviews for a long time, and I am very glad this was posted. I have considered home brewing.
I've been using WLP-029 for quite a few years now. Awesome product!
I've been home brewing for 3 years and never used sanitizer once. Never had a problem.
Hey, do you mind if I asked you some question??
And this is why White Labs yeast is probably the best on the market
Any risks of harvesting yeast from a high alcohol commercial strong Belgian dark ale?
The only real risk would be that there is little to no viable yeast. With that said, Belgian strains tend to often surprise us so give it a shot and let us know how it turns out!
@@WhiteLabsInc Thanks, will do.
Its chimay blue that I will be using. I have heard that it's a bottling yeast, so I might add it towards the end of the ferment, or in the secondary vessel.
@@WhiteLabsInc
I made the starter and it seems to have grown quite a lot. The only issue I can see is that it's slightly off white in colour. Whether that is a problem, I am unsure.
Hi. I do starter dry yeast too? I ask because here in Brazil this product is best used . thank you
I can't wait for the White Labs television commercial with the jingle, "♫ The Original, Pitchable Yeast!♫". This is a great video, but you might want be cognizant of the redundant information. Thanks!
I love be how they take lots of care to produce sterile wort. Then chuck a non sanitary stirrer magnet in with ungloved hands. Nice!
It looks like the stir bar was put through an autoclave which is why she pulls it out of the foil. Gloves would be ideal but she could have sprayed her hands with 70%+ alcohol or other sanitizer prior to filming.
@@WhiteLabsInc thanks the the reply. It's just an amusing mistake on an otherwise very well done video.
I hope you guys keep up the public information for the brewers. Your a great resource.
@@neil7902 Thanks! We have some great content coming down the pipeline for 2021 so keep an eye out!
Neva: I noticed that you introducded a stirbar to the flask by hand. Isn't this a good way to introduce unwanted bacteria to the wort?
I don't touch the stirbar after sanitizing in boiling water.
My method is
1. put a small amount of water into the flask along with the stir bar
2. cover the mouth of the flask with foil
3. place the flask over a low flame and boil the water with stirbar for 15 min. The stirbar provides nucliation points much like boiling chips.
4. let cool
5. decant the water
6. add previously boiled and cooled (canned) wort to the flask. (I can some wort from each brewing session for yeast cultivation)
7. add yeast, cover with foil
8. aerate or oxygenate
9. begin stirplate action
yeah, don't touch the stir bar after it has been sanitized
The figure at the end, the table with the inoculation rate info, where is that figure from?
its based on a perfect yeast pack of 100 billion cells divided by the volume of the starter. cells per ML
What I don't see in this video is...what is happening with the yeast before adding it? Is it sitting out at room temp for a couple hours? for a day? for minutes?
It is best to let it sit at the temperature you are going to be pitching/fermenting at for a few hours before you pitch.
How do you know it worked?
Performing a cell count and staining would be ideal but at the very least you should see an increase in biomass.
So you use Play Dough
What is sarbar means?
I took the 2 day class from White Labs in Boulder in '16. Folks were nice, process was basic 'biology/chemistry' level stuff, and honestly I got very bored very quickly. However, lab work is generally pretty boring, so I video taped a bunch of stuff, took photos, and toured Sam's operation which is adjacent to WL in the building shared with Upslope. Visit with Sam, or whomever is there now. As for the quality of this video, its a general tutorial, and accurate and good. However, the focus on being sanitized, concerned about the priority for it in building cell count and viability, the HUGE lack of focus in the video about sanitization is a bit of a concern. Total fail on it, but again the video is about the process, not the details.
What ratio of DME and water for a 1L flask starter?
10 to 1...
I like the bare fingers on the stir bar
So do I... :)
I saw her touch the stir bar also! She should have opened the foil and let it drop in!
While I appreciate the comprehensiveness of this video, I don't think you're bringing it down enough to the neophyte level for most people to understand. Just tell them to make a wort with 1.5L of water and a cup of light DME, pitch, then cool, isn't it really that simple when it comes down to it?
Gene Harrison cool, then pitch
can cheesecloth be used instead of foil?
No, you use foil to prevent any microbes from getting inside.
What in the world is "DME"???
Dry Malt Extract, similar time Liquid Malt Extract but completely dried out and more shelf stable longer.
What is dme???
Dried Malt Extract
hay rocky=go buy a bud and go away
It's not right, she says 1 to 10 ratio, 200 grams and enough water to make 2 liters. 1 to 10 is 200 grams added to 2 liters, not to make up a total of two liters.
If the goal is sanitation, why unwrap the stir bar from the foil pouch and handle it with bare hands before going into the flask? This is right about 4:17 in the video.
too much work for me - I just pitched it to 5 gallons of 1.080 (10.9% potential abv) Russian Imperial Stout. Also, it it OK if I took it out of the freezer 24 hours before pitching? It fizzed and spilled over a little when I opened it.
I want to harvest yeast from a sour beer (Duchesse De Bourgenone).
!awesome cheese!
White Labs, we make 3min videos into 7min videos by repeating the same information multiple times!
Dillon Miller You want to aim to be between 1.030 and 1.040 for optimum yeast growth and yeast health.
The back ground noise (Music??) is awful, get rid of it. I have hearing loss and that noise makes it impossible to make sense of the presentation. Sad really, such a good video otherwise.
For over four decades I have not allow any metric in my Brewery! All of my wall charts, equations and graphs were produced by me!
Why did she handle the stir bar before putting in the wort? Yikes, so much for sanitization!
Don't touch the stir bar please.
Bad practise!!!
Harit Suwannahong I bet she can spell practice though. hahaha
This video should be retitled 'White Labs sanitary FAIL'!
I agree, Dave. I think this whole presentation could have been made a whole lot simpler.
Dave she said the most important thing was to be sanitary she was making a video to help us, I am sure she did not actually pitch that yeast nor did I see a final product. A has-mat suit would not have been practical for this production...cheers
I think that if so many people have to ask so many questions about this topic after having viewed this video there is no way I can consider this a "great video." 'Member the old "Keep It Simple Stupid" admonition? Well, it applies here. KISS.
There's nothing simple about yeast. KISS is for people who don't want to do things right
It's always been simple for me. Only one bad starter in 12 years. That was from the manufacturer who sent me a bad yeast. Hundreds of good starters and one bad yeast. Because something is simple does not mean that it's easy.
Why did you touch the stir bar ? 💩
Sorry I just smoked a bowl and watched your video. Nothing really got in there.
4:16, that pretty thumb couldn't possibly have any germs on it... ;-) Sterilize everything else!!!
First of all: Thanks for this video
2º - Please american people start to use the metric system like the rest of the word! Will be very nice with us!
3º - Nice graphic in the end of video! Where I can find to download that?
Maybe she had sanitized her hands with alcohol or something? Anyway, this should have been commented. I don't doubt her knowlegde about microbiology, so this is probably just a slip-up.
There are a few "fails" with sanitation in this video. =\ You should delete and retry. :)
Considering the number of times you mentioned “sanitation”, perhaps you should follow that advice yourself? I cringed when you picked up that stirbar with your hands, and then you went ahead and put it in the beaker! 😬 and the way you used imperial measurements all the time, makes me really wonder how serious a “lab” you really are.
Otherwise, good video.
Great presentation, thanks.
what is the formula to obtain the desired gravity. for example, if i want a gravity of 1.02 how much DME is required for a 1 liter stater?
Hi. I do starter dry yeast too? I ask because here in Brazil this product is best used . thank you
No starter for dry yeast
Dry yeast normally just needs to be re-hydrated properly. If you are trying to inoculate a large volume of wort (more than 30 liters) you should consider using more than one package of dry yeast. Alternatively you could make a starter to grow the yeast population.
Yes, you can - but mainly if you're brewing stronger beers [above 1.060 OG] otherwise is not really needed.
Just the same as. it depends on volume and SG if its worths doing.